


Practice

by azephirin



Category: Star Trek (2009), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Comment Fic, Community: 100_women, Courtship, Cultural Differences, F/M, Flirting, Holding Hands, Interspecies, Meme, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-07
Updated: 2010-03-07
Packaged: 2017-10-07 19:24:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azephirin/pseuds/azephirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe there's no right or wrong way, but practice still makes perfect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Practice

**Author's Note:**

> A cleaned-up and slightly expanded version of a ficlet originally posted [here](http://micolerose.livejournal.com/267024.html?thread=2092304#t2092304). Also for my [](http://community.livejournal.com/100_women/profile)[**100_women**](http://community.livejournal.com/100_women/) [table](http://azephirin.livejournal.com/74095.html) prompt "hands."

They have known each other for months—long enough that, with any other man, Amanda would have gone to bed with him, stopped seeing him, or declared him firmly in the friend category. They have known each other this long before, one night at dinner, Sarek reaches across the table and rubs two of her fingers with his own. It's pleasant—he has nice hands, solid and square and strong, and his higher body temperature feels good to someone who's had cold hands and feet her entire life. She smiles at him—

And then she remembers one of so very many cultural differences, and her eyes widen in shock.

Sarek starts to pull away, and Amanda is certain that he will promptly apologize for having made an unwelcome overture, and that isn't it—that isn't it at all. She laces her fingers with his, and he meets her gaze—more slowly, perhaps, than might be typical of someone whose actions are rarely anything but considered and sure. Sarek's eyes, through which, Amanda has found, he reveals far more of himself than perhaps he realizes, are dark with astonishment and (she hopes—oh, how she hopes) banked desire.

"You are aware," Sarek says, voice measured as always, "that this gesture carries a meaning somewhat different for Vulcans than for humans."

"I am quite aware of that," Amanda replies. She takes a breath and starts, "Would you—" but then breaks off. She has to take another breath while she gathers her courage. "Let's try it again. I wasn't expecting it the first time, and I'm sure I did it wrong."

Perhaps it's her imagination, or perhaps Sarek's fingers relax infinitesimally. "There is no right or wrong method," he says. He isn't smiling, but his voice deepens when he's amused, something else Amanda wonders whether he knows.

"Still," she persists, biting back what wants to become a grin, "practice makes perfect. And then maybe once I've gotten the hang of it this way, we can try it the human way."

"That would be acceptable," Sarek says, in unflappable Vulcan deadpan, and Amanda can't help it—she's human, and she's in love, and she closes her hand around his and laughs.


End file.
